Can you briefly introduce yourself?
I am Emma Davie from Scotland. I work with Edinburgh College of Art,as a tutor for documentary. I am also a consultant with the Scottish Documentary Institute and I write about documentary and I also make them.
What is the East European Forum and what is your role in it?
The East European Forum is a most wonderful way for people from this part of the world to pitch projects to sell to Commissioning Editors from all over Europe and from North America too. Basically, my role here is to come and to work with the projects before they are pitched. So for three days, we have been working on the projects, helping people clarify what their story is or what the film is about and also how they present the project. And also looking at the clips that they have to show and seeing if we can give any suggestions if they still have time to work on them.
How did you become involved in this festival?
I have done a lot of this training around Europe, with people who pitch documentaries. I used to be the board member and a British representative in the UK documentary network. So for four years I travelled at different times around Europe and did this kind of thing, to help train people for it. So I was asked to come. Tue Steen Müller, who is one of the main people running the actual training and the pitching forum asked me.
What do you do in these workshops?
In these workshops, we hear the projects and we try to help them clarify the idea. We try to help them deliver it as clearly and as well as possible, so that they can sell their ideas to as many people as possible, but also, so they know what their film is. Because often we need a bit of help, sometimes, to realise what a film is about. Because sometimes, in the process of making the film, it becomes clearer, but with this method of having to pitch to commissioning editors, at this early stage, you have to be clear now, as much as you can, what really the film is about. That does not necessarily mean that you need to know exactly what happens, of course, but you still need to know how you approach the structure, who the characters are, what really the main drama of the film is if it is about drama, what really the passion in the film is.
How do you achieve this?
I think it is not just the tutors that give feedback, the other people who are also pitching also give feedback, and I think when things are clear, then everybody knows. And when things aren't , then we also know. So we achieve it first of all in group workshops, but also in one-to-one tutorials, when we go into the idea with more focus and we distil the idea down and we try to reduce it to its real nuts and bolts.
How are you finding Jihlava and the organisation of the East European Forum?
It's wonderful. I think it is a really fantastic thing that is going on in the Czech Republic just now, for documentary. I was here five years ago, not in Jihlava, but in Prague, also for Ex Oriente, because it comes out of the Ex Oriente too, there is that relationship. So it was the Ex Oriente things, not just the East European Forum. I was here with Ex Oriente and the projects then were really strong, too. But I have noticed that people's professionalism and approach to pitching has got more and more and they have a fantastic mixture of both being very human and very professional. So you turn up in this place upstairs (Jihlava Horácké Theatre, ed.) and it has all this lovely humour of all this recycled stuff, ("Recycle life, make a documentary!" is the slogan of the East European Forum, ed.) recycled sofas and everything, but their approach is also incredibly professional, and very passionate. And very young. The film makers are so young that I feel there's a real buzz taking place. That is why there are so many commissioning editors from all over the world because they want to know what is happening in Eastern Europe but I think what is interesting also is that you have such strong traditions of cinematography in so many of the Eastern European countries . Maybe internationally, this is being more valued now. The ability of really good, strong, very cinematic documentaries.
Briefly, what are the characteristics of a good documentary? And how do you tell your students about it?
For me, the characteristic of a good documentary, if I can dare to sum it up, is that you have a real sense of the personal engagement of the person who is making it. You have a real sense of their need to make this film. And it could result in a strong story, but it could also result in a really strong visual poem. But you have the need that there really is this urgency to make it, this need to make it. And if they don't have that need to make it, I say, don't make it. Because there are so many films that are made because they think other people would like to see them. And they end up being very bland. And nothing. And I think when it comes to pitching, too, you can really sense the projects that people care passionately about, that people need to make, that people understand how to make universal. Because so much of what we do in the pitching forum we try to train people to make very local stories universal. Which I think is to interest them to see how it can be really achieved. In a way, we are all learning about filmmaking through it. And I think this is what it is. Really, at its best, this is what it is. It is not just about getting money, but it about all of us learning about what makes good films.
Thank you very much.
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